


Hot Chocolate

by dragonlisette



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-12-03 21:42:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11540979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonlisette/pseuds/dragonlisette
Summary: Phil's good at being happy all the time until he's not.





	Hot Chocolate

**Author's Note:**

> [originally posted on tumblr.](http://cityofphanchester.tumblr.com/post/89390625730/hot-chocolate)

Dan is standing outside the white paneling of a door he doesn’t particularly want to open, socked foot scuffing nervously on the carpet. If it were any other door in the entire bloody flat he’d have already had it open, but it’s Phil’s door, of course it’s Phil’s door, and it’s nearly two o’clock in the afternoon, and he hasn’t seen or heard anything of Phil all day. No matter how many times Dan tells himself  _don’t bother him, you’re not his mother_ , he’s starting to get a little worried. He can’t be sleeping still, and surely if he went off somewhere before Dan woke up he would have left a note.

So Dan raises his hand to tap lightly on the door. Probably he’s ill, and Dan will make him some tea and bring him paracetamol and everything will be fine. But he drops his hand without knocking because maybe Phil just wants to be left alone for the day. But then he thinks about how clumsy Phil is and maybe he’s knocked the chest of drawers over and trapped himself underneath it or something ridiculous and so then he forgoes knocking and creaks the door slowly open.

The room is a weird half-light, the clouded-over sun shining dully through the window but none of the lights on, and it’s tidier than Dan is used to. The whole room is as neat as the square in the background of his videos, the only part of his bedroom Phil regularly cleans. The chest of drawers isn’t toppled over a still form in a mess of blood and odd socks, so that’s a relief, but Dan’s a bit scared anyway because Phil is sitting cross-legged in the middle of his bed like he’s filming except he’s just staring down at the green and blue check with headphones in and the music’s so loud that Dan swears he can hear it from across the room.

“Hi?” Dan tries, because he doesn’t seem to have heard the door open. Phil blinks up at him, surprised, and fumbles for his phone to shut off the music, pulling at his headphones and letting them fall to his lap.

“Hi.” he says, and his voice is soft and raspy, but he doesn’t clear his throat to try again the way he would with anyone else because there’s never been much pretending between them.

“Are you okay?” Dan asks hesitantly, taking a step forward and leaving the safety of the doorframe. He’s never been good at comforting people, but he knows from the way Phil shrugs and attempts a reassuring smile that he isn’t anywhere close to okay. Dan crosses the room in three strides, bumps down onto the duvet next to him, and offers a hug, because Phil spends all his time being happy, existing as the ever-excitable and family-friendly AmazingPhil, sending less-than-threes to ecstatic fans and awwing at cute animals and saying weird and adorable and probably unacceptable things on international radio. Dan knows the two versions of Phil better than probably anyone else, and he knows what Phil does. He keeps up the image for as long as he can, stays cheery and upbeat until all the sadness he’s internalized finally builds up too high and he’s forced to face it.

Phil accepts the hug willingly, even lets Dan cling on a second too long as if he can make him feel better through osmosis, but as they pull away he’s starting to look a bit wobbly, as if he might cry, and Dan’s mind is racing like he’s just been put down at an emergency scene. Phil is good at the whole comforting-people thing. In Dan’s very worst existential crises, which involve hours of shouting and crying and stumbling through words that don’t fall easily off his clumsy tongue, Phil is always there, managing to say the right things and bring up the right points and present Dan with the emergency Maltesers packet when he’s just calmed down enough to need it. Dan wants to be like that, but he’s crap at comforting people beyond vague but well-meant breakup advice. He toys with the headphone cords and then busies himself untangling them while he thinks. After a few seconds of deliberation, he smooths the cords out between his fingers, lays them aside, and stands, pulling Phil to his feet with only a bit of resistance from the other.

“Come on.” Dan says. “I’m making you tea.”

“I’m not  _ill_ , Dan.” he says, shaking his head. “I’m  _fine_.”

“I didn’t say you were ill, did I?” he asks, steering his unwilling companion out into the hall.

“We don’t drink tea, though.” Phil points out, and his voice definitely sounds wobbly, dangerously so.

“So? My mum knows more than the both of us put together, and she always said tea was good for the soul.”

Phil makes a skeptical noise in response, but he follows as Dan pulls the glass door open and leads him into the kitchen. Dan rifles through the cupboard, watching Phil lean against the counter out of the corner of his eye, until finally he locates and extracts a somewhat-crushed cardboard box of tea bags. As he turns around in triumph, Phil hoists himself up to sit on the side, even though he’s far too tall and the cupboards are far too low so he’s all folded up and bent forward, watching Dan mournfully with watery eyes, and Dan can’t help but slide the box onto the side and catch him up in a crushing embrace.

“Screw this.” Dan mutters into his hair. “You need a hot chocolate.”

Phil lets out something between a laugh and a sniffle, pressing his face into Dan’s shoulder and slipping down off the counter so they can hug properly, his fingers twisting tightly into the back of Dan’s shirt. They stand like that for a long moment, breathing in sync, and Dan can’t remember the last time they hugged like this, and it’s nice, and he wonders why they don’t do the touching thing more.

“‘m sorry.” Phil says into his neck, sniffling again.

“Don’t be.” Dan says automatically. “What’s wrong?” he asks, and Phil shakes his head a little, so Dan doesn’t press it. Instead they stand together, Dan running his hands lightly up and down Phil’s back, and then it ends and they pull away, and Phil is giving him the tiniest of tiny smiles.

“Thank you.” he says, in a little voice to match his smile, and Dan shakes his head because he’s still not sure what he’s doing.

“Welcome.” he says, and in a sudden burst of fondness he reaches out and ruffles Phil’s hair, so much shorter now than it was when he first saw it. “Come on. Hot chocolate. Shit TV. We’ll even…duvet fort. I’ll make you a fucking duvet fort if you like.”

Phil laughs, tipping forward to hide his face in Dan’s shoulder again. “Thanks.” he says, muffled, grateful. “How about manly platonic cuddles?”    

Dan puts his arms around Phil’s shoulders. “Manly platonic cuddles, absolutely.” he promises.

Which is how they find themselves curled up on the floor of the lounge, backs against the sofa, wrapped in both their duvets and surrounded by all the pillows to be found on short notice. The hot chocolates they’re nursing would probably have been of better quality if Dan had been in control of both arms when he’d made it, but he wasn’t going to deprive Phil of the comfort he seemed to be finding by burrowing himself into Dan’s right side. Now he’s leaning against Dan’s chest, his head tucked under Dan’s chin, and they’re watching a muted baking programme and Dan’s narrating it in exaggerated accents in an attempt to make Phil laugh. “ _oh no!_ ” The voice he’s assigned to the contestant the cameras are currently focused on is high-pitched and abusively posh. “ _Phil, I’ve dropped my cake on the floor, whatever shall I do?_ ”

“Feed it to your children, obviously.” Phil tells her.

“ _no Phil, don’t be stupid, they’ll die of floor poisoning!_ ”

“Good, if they’re as rubbish at baking as you are they’ll starve to death anyway. You’re nearly as bad at it as Dan is.”

“Hey now,” Dan says, defensive, “I made hot chocolate.”

“True.” Phil says, deliberating. “I don’t think baking programme lady could make hot chocolate if there was a rampaging, hot-chocolate-craving dragon coming for her children,” and it’s a weird and Phil thing to say, and he’s readjusting himself like he plans to fall asleep on Dan’s lap. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“No, ‘s cool.” and Dan is awkward why is he awkward he’s known this man for five years now, and Phil curls up like a cat with his head on Dan’s lap and closes his eyes, and Dan turns the television off just as the posh lady bursts into hysterical tears.

“You okay?” Dan asks, gentle, and reaches out to touch his hair. Phil nods without opening his eyes.

“Yeah. Didn’t sleep.” and it’s not the reason for the sadness but it’s the reason for the tiredness so it’s good enough.

Dan brushes Phil’s fringe back behind his ear, and a tiny smile pulls at Phil’s lips.

“Thank you,” he says, and it’s a little voice but it’s genuine. “You’re my favorite, you know that?” and Dan just smiles and keeps stroking gentle fingers through his hair as their breaths rise and fall together and rain begins to drum softly on the windows.


End file.
